Saturday, July 31, 2010

I'm happy to announce our third and final day of House Arrest (aka potty training) is over. Shhhh...don't tell anyone but we technically broke free around 5:30pm and went to the neighborhood pool for a little while.

It honestly wasn't all that bad as David and I did a little tag teaming and I was able to get out of the house a couple of times. Caleb did great today, he had one poop accident tonight but other than that he as either told us when he needed to go potty or just simply went to the bathroom and took care of things all by himself.

One final story and then I promise to be done with giving potty updates.....last night Caleb was having trouble going to bed. Around 11:00pm I hear something and figure he is probably gathering up his blankets in attempt to sneak into our room and sleep in the floor. I decide to get up and check on him and am surprised to see the bathroom light on in the hall. I think surely not but yes this little guy has gotten up out of bed, gone into the bathroom and went to the potty all by himself. I think surely he must have wet the bed but was in disbelief when he said he was all dry and there wasn't even a drop in his underwear. Yahoo! Believe me I realize we will still have some accidents and I know that there will be nights when he might accidentally wet the bed but I think we have had a very successful 3 days and am so completely proud of Caleb. He has been so cute...at various times when David and I were telling him good job or would be letting him know how proud we are of him he would tell us thanks. Love, love, love him to pieces. Wish us luck tomorrow at church that we make it through with no accidents.

Friday, July 30, 2010

We have successfully completed our second day of potty training with flying colors! I am absolutely so proud of Caleb! He was dry when he woke up this morning, has had 4 successful trips to the potty where he told us he needed to go, 1 successful pee pee in the yard that he handled all by himself (I'll share that story in a minute), 1 successful pee pee right before bedtime that we initiated and only 1 poop accident.

With the 3 day potty training method we are following you are suppose to be glued to their side for 3 full days giving praise, encouragement, and reminders without actually telling them to go potty. It's all about trying to empower them to read their own body signs and know when they need to go. Now of course if you see them start going or if they are doing some serious pee pee dance don't just stand their get them to the bathroom as fast as you can.

Since Caleb had done so well today I decided to deviate from the manual and give him a little slack and let him play by himself for a few minutes while I finished up dinner before David got home. I so wish I would have grabbed my camera before rushing outside because the scene I saw outside my kitchen window was priceless. As I'm getting something out of the refrigerator I turn to look out the window and check on Caleb only to be greeted by a little white bottom "mooning" me and a little boy successfully pee peeing in the yard. I rushed outside to see if he needs help and ask him if needs new underwear only to be told "no, I pee pee in the grass" and am imformed that his underwear are all clean/dry. Huge successes as far as I'm concerned. He didn't bother to come get me he just dropped his drawers and took care of business without pee peeing any in his underwear. Yeah Caleb!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Day 1 of potty training has finally coming to an end. I think I can safely speak for Caleb that we are both tired of hearing statements like "Tell Mommy if you need to go potty", "Don't forget to go potty", "Is Buzz Lightyear, Wall-E, etc still dry".

There was a slight protest this morning when I told Caleb we were going to throw his diapers away and explained he was a big boy and that he no longer needed them. I'm not really sure that he was actually upset about throwing them away so much as he just didn't want to be bothered at the moment because he wanted to go and watch cartoons. He quickly got over it as I kept telling him we needed to find all of his diapers and throw them away and kept making statement like "Your a big boy and we don't need them anymore". He actually LOVED throwing them away and even volunteered that he didn't need them because he wears underwear. I am very happy to report that so far he hasn't asked once for a diapter, evan after an accident he would just tell me that he needed some clean underwear.

(Don't worry this frugal mom didn't actually throw the diapers away. We just went through the actions and put the trash bag in the garage where it was later retrieved and hid away in hopes for the next kiddo.)

This kid has been a camel today! We took him to potty after he first woke up this morning and he didn't pee again until around 12:15. He had 2 incidents where he started to pee before he told me he needed to go potty but he quit both times and finished on the potty. We had one poop accident and a huge success at dinner time where while he was eating without being prompted he told us he needed to go pee pee and waited until he got to the bathroom.

I've been very proud of him and am hoping tomorrow goes well. I'm very encouraged that he is excited about wearing his underwear and am glad that he hasn't asked once about his diapers. I've actually been a little surprised......we actually bought his big boy underwear while we were all out shopping Saturday night and had him pick out a couple of the packages. That night while he was getting ready for bed he wanted to wear them so we went ahead and let him sleep in them since he is usually dry through out the night and we just made sure to take him to the bathroom as soon as he woke up. Since Saturday night he has actually gone in and put them on a couple more times after he has come home from Nana and Papa's and has wore them to sleep a couple other nights this week. We just waited until today to officially start our full day in underwear since I'm off the rest of the week.

Here's hoping to a successful day tomorrow and no accidents tonight while he sleeps!

I apologize ahead of time if I do not respond to your email, text message or phone call over the next 3 days it is because we are in a self inflicted, full blown lock down at the Winberry house where a watchful eye will be glued to Caleb reminding him "tell Mommy/Daddy if you need to go potty".

Ready or not operation House Arrest aka Potty Training has begun!

Let's run through the check list and see if we have everything....

1. The "3 Day Potty Training" manual (thanks Kimberley for letting us borrow it).....CHECK!2. A trash can where Caleb will tell his diapers goodbye forever (cross my fingers really hard).......CHECK!3. Options for disposing properly of all pee and poop.....CHECK!4. Multiple pairs of big boy underwear.....CHECK!5. Various beverages to choose from in effort to create more opportunities to run to the bathroom......CHECK!6. Treats and Rewards for positive reinforcement......CHECK!7. Treats for the Mommy for having to clean up any accidents and as a reward for staying calm for the next 3 days.....CHECK!8. A willing participant.....hmmmm I'll get back with you on this one.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Caleb is being quite the little helper this morning. I asked him to take his toys and blankets back to his room and without any argument he put his things up. He was a little concerned whether or not I was going to pick up my things but after assuring him I would he sprang into action.

I later asked him to get the vacuum out for me and without any hesitation he went to the hall closet, got out the vacuum, brought it to the living room and then came into the bedroom where I was at and let me know he had gotten it out for me. He then told me "Caleb first" so I decided to go ahead and let him try a turn at vacuuming. I'm starting to think he would have kept doing it all morning if I hadn't stepped in and asked to help him finish.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

What a great day today has been! A great time of praise and worship, lunch with friends, our traditional Sunday afternoon nap and then finished off with taking Caleb to see his first movie at the movie theater.

I'll admit I was a bit nervous how our trip to see Toy Story 3 would turn out as our little guy doesn't exactly have the longest attention span but he did great and I think ate his weight in popcorn.

He seemed to be excited about what lay in store for him and kept asking me "they going to catch the truck" and talking about a rocket which I didn't quite understand until David told me he was referring to the original Toy Story. I was surprised he even remembered that scene since he has only seen Toy Story 1 or 2 times.

Caleb was very busy as we arrived at the theater and had to check out the fountain inside..........the arcade room where he had to touch/play with all of the different games

.....and concluded with examining the candy case at the concession stand.

We were very cheesy and took several pictures of Caleb's first time at the movies before the show actually started. I'm sure our friend Greg that went with us thought we were a bit silly but luckily there was another family in front of us doing the same thing with their kids so we took turns taking group pictures for each other.

Caleb loaded up on popcorn, candy and juice. There was really only one section toward the end of the movie when he got a bit restless. Like any good mother I simply reminded him he needed to stay in his seat and quickly offered him more sweet tarts.

There were a few times during the movie that I was afraid that he might get a little scared. The little boy in front of us got scared and once even cried and I was anxiously waiting to see if Caleb would follow suit but he held strong. Toward the very end of the movie he did get a little nervous in the scene where the toys are being pulled in the trash toward the fire at the dump but he just looked at me and said "They going to be OK?" (how sweet is that).

He really seemed to have a good time and made us so proud of how good he acted. He seemed so big sitting in his own chair watching the movie and at the end said "It's over" and clapped.